


you were a presence full of light upon this earth

by outruntheavalanche



Series: Author's Favorites [10]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Character Death, Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, In Memory of Carrie Fisher, the Force works in mysterious ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:06:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9090808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: Bail found himself drawn to her eyes. Her dark, impossibly familiar eyes.





	

_and i am a witness to your life and to its worth_  
— "Matthew 25:21," The Mountain Goats

Bail sat with Breha in the magnificent gardens of their palace, as they had for the last many… Had it been years already? Sometimes it felt like mere seconds, minutes, and other times it felt like a millennium had passed. 

It was peaceful in their garden. The glint of the sun was always bright, the air was always crisp and refreshing, and birdsong was ever in the air. It was peaceful, beautiful, _perfect_ —but Bail still found it lacking. 

There was a magnificent palace of marble and glass, though neither Bail nor Breha had ever been inside. In fact, Bail wasn’t entirely sure the palace actually existed, just that he somehow knew it did. Sometimes Bail heard the phantom laughter of children ringing in his ears, near enough that he could close his eyes and imagine Leia standing right in front of him.

The soft rustle of leaves is what caused him to open his eyes. The sound of laughing children faded, swallowed by the sound of rustling leaves, and Bail grasped blindly for Breha’s hand. A cool breeze caressed his bare cheek and tangled gently in his hair. 

There was hardly ever any breeze here. Bail wondered what had changed.

A small figure—small only in stature, Bail noted, for they carried themselves as if they possessed the height of a Wookiee—emerged from the hedge that lined their garden. It was an older woman clad in unfamiliar dress, her graying brown hair braided and bound in an old-fashioned Alderaanian style. Bail hadn’t seen such an elaborate hairstyle since… 

He rubbed his hand over Breha’s, pushing the memory of their deaths, the loss of their world, the likely assassination of their beloved daughter, out of his mind. He felt Breha rest her cheek against his shoulder.

“Wh-where am I?” the woman asked, eyeing Bail and Breha suspiciously. Her voice was rough, as craggy as her wrinkled face. She looked as if she’d lived through many wars, many fights.

Bail found himself drawn to her eyes. Her dark, impossibly familiar eyes.

Something wound around his heart and tugged, as if to tell him: _it is her._

“ _Leia._ ” Bail stood, letting Breha’s hand slip from his grasp. He reached out for her.

“Father!” The woman rushed toward him, arms outstretched, her brown eyes welling. “Mother!”

Bail wrapped his eyes around his daughter and felt his wife encircle them in her embrace. “Leia,” he said again, holding her tightly. “Last we heard, your ship had been captured. We…we thought you had died.”

Leia pulled back and Bail’s breath caught in his chest. She was his little girl again, her hair braided and wrapped atop her head like a crown. Leia was dressed in the white silk gown she’d worn on the night of her debut, and she had a silver circlet around her neck. She was as he’d remembered her all these years—or was it minutes? He wondered what his daughter saw when she looked up on her parents. Would she see them as she remembered them, or would they appear old and wizened to her, wearing like costumes the years they never got to experience?

“I was captured,” Leia told them, taking their hands in hers, “but I was rescued by a brave farmboy and a reformed scoundrel.” Her lips curved in an implication of a smile, slight enough that either Bail or Breha could have missed it if neither of them knew their daughter as well as they did. “I had so many wonderful adventures with them. I had a family and friends. A cause I believed in and never stopped fighting for. I've lost so much, but... sometimes, I was happy. And I always knew I was loved.”

“That’s all we ever wanted for you,” Breha said softly, touching Leia’s cheek tenderly. “That you were happy and loved.”

Leia smiled and reached up, covering her mother’s hand with her own. “I know.”

Bail met Leia’s eyes and he found himself mirroring the slight smile he saw spreading across her face.


End file.
